Il Messaggiere - News from Rome, Modena, Reggio, Italy and the world

Brittney Griner -- a world basketball great, Olympic legend and LGBT trailblazer -- now faces losing the greatest years of her career in a Russian penal colony.

The St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs will take one of Major League Baseball's oldest rivalries overseas with a two-game series at London in 2023, the teams announced Thursday.

Michael Cheika on Thursday announced nine changes to his Argentina side to take on Australia in their Rugby Championship opener in Mendoza but was unable to recall one key player.

Australia's two-time individual world time-trial champion Rohan Dennis won Commonwealth Games gold on Thursday as former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas took bronze despite a crash.

A Russian outfit hired people off the street and paid them to post online comments intended to give the impression of grassroots support for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Facebook owner Meta said Thursday.

Paris Saint-Germain's new coach Christophe Galtier on Thursday signed Portugal midfielder Renato Sanches and said he hoped to make three further signings before the end of the transfer window.

Italian anti-immigration leader Matteo Salvini warned Thursday his country would not host "the refugee camp of Europe" as he visited a migrant centre on the tiny island of Lampedusa on a campaign stop for September elections.

Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic, whose refusal to be vaccinated against Covid makes him unable to enter Canada, has officially withdrawn from the ATP hardcourt tournament in Montreal, organizers said Thursday.

The ground rumbles underfoot, then roars as red-orange lava fountains shoot up from the ground, the intense heat cloaking the nearby crowd awestruck by Iceland's latest volcanic eruption.

An "unprecedented" fire broke out Thursday around a German police munitions storage site in a popular forest in western Berlin, sending plumes of smoke into the skies and setting off a series of explosions.

Manchester United left-back Alex Telles joined Sevilla on a season-long loan on Thursday.

Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus and the rest of Australia's swimming team are heading home after a stellar Commonwealth Games with their eyes firmly set on the 2024 Olympics.

A 62-year-old French sailor has been rescued in the Atlantic Ocean off Spain after surviving for 16 hours in a tiny air bubble under his capsized sailboat, the Spanish coastguard said Thursday.

A Venezuelan court on Tuesday sentenced an opposition ex-MP and 16 others to jail terms of up to 30 years for an alleged exploding drone attack against President Nicolas Maduro in 2018.

Rescuers raced Thursday to free 10 workers trapped in a coal mine after a cave-in in northern Mexico, where desperate relatives spent a sleepless night waiting for news.

The US Justice Department charged four police officers on Thursday over the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in a botched 2020 raid on her home in Louisville, Kentucky.

A Russian court on Thursday found US basketball star Brittney Griner guilty of smuggling and storing drugs and sentenced her to nine years in prison.

More than half of species whose endangered status cannot be assessed due to a lack of data are predicted to face the risk of extinction, according to a machine-learning analysis published Thursday.

Antonio Conte has set high expectations for his first full season as Tottenham manager by declaring his ambition to win both the Premier League and Champions League.

An "unprecedented" fire broke out Thursday around a German police munitions storage site in a popular forest in western Berlin, sending plumes of smoke into the skies and setting off explosions.

Firefighters backed by more than 20 aircraft battled a wildfire in northwestern Spain which appears to have been started deliberately, local authorities said on Thursday.

South Sudan's leaders have announced they will remain in power two years beyond an agreed deadline, sparking criticism from foreign partners.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta hopes that Gabriel Jesus' experience of regularly winning trophies at Manchester City will rub off on his new teammates.

A 19-year-old accused of shooting Lady Gaga's dog walker to steal her French bulldogs last year has been recaptured after being mistakenly released, authorities in Los Angeles have said.

The French government will create an ambassador's post to promote LGBTQ rights across the world, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Thursday.

European stocks rose Thursday as the Bank of England delivered its biggest interest rate hike in 27 years and traders tracked Chinese military drills around Taiwan.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on Thursday launched six people to space, including the first from Egypt and Portugal, on the company's sixth crewed flight.

Adam Peaty says he will use his shock breaststroke defeat at the Commonwealth Games as "jet fuel" as he focuses on the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Everton have been dealt a major blow ahead of the new Premier League season after manager Frank Lampard revealed Dominic Calvert-Lewin will be sidelined for six weeks.

Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier said Thursday he hopes for three more signings before the end of the transfer window, on top of the expected arrival of Portugal midfielder Renato Sanches.

Hundreds of migrants were ferried off the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa Thursday ahead of a visit by anti-immigrant leader Matteo Salvini, who is campaigning for September elections vowing to stop new arrivals.

Moscow and Washington have been in talks about a new prisoner exchange, in a rare moment of dialogue with tensions soaring over Russia's military intervention in Ukraine.